Friend

DEVOTION
JAMES
FRIEND
James 4:4-6
4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
NIV
I do not think I am a friend of the world. I do not accept the ways of the world, the system by which non-believers govern their lives. I choose to believe God. I choose to believe every word within the Bible is the inspired word of God; He breathed it into the hearts and souls of those men who actually pen the words. He influenced their very thoughts. I cannot accept any contrived system men of the world develop. I live completely totally on faith. I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who can as a man, lived and died on the cross for my sin, and then rose from the grave and ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of the Father and that he sent the Holy Spirit to guide me though this life, to inspire me, to seal me for God. Men may come up with all sorts of systems to guide their lives, and be inspired by but they cannot seal themselves for God. They ways are not Gods way. I do not want to travel with them; I desire the path God has laid out for me. If I were the only one on the earth traveling with God, that would be just fine. I do not need men to agree with me. I do not need them to accept the words I say. I know in whom I believe, I have had way too many direct interactions with God to not know who he is and believe he is God. I do not need human fame and fortune and power. I do not need anything except Jesus. I cannot save myself, without him I am doomed to destruction. Nothing, not one single thing in this world can save me from destruction, only Jesus. Sure, it is true I have some things of this world, but that is all they are. Things which have been given to me by God, which affords me some comfort but they bring glory to God. I am careful to credit him for all I have, for all I am, and for all I do. I have nothing without him, I am nothing without him and I can do nothing without him. I think God for what he does for me, in me and through me. What has the world ever done for me, in me and through me? Nothing but trouble, no of that I am no friend, but of God I am his friend.